Friday, April 25, 2008

In the ongoing pursuit of rock and roll immortality, we have come up with a new and crazy idea; an animated show loosely based on the band, except with super powers who save the world with rock!

That's all I can divulge at the moment except to say that this is NOT a pipe dream (and those with pipes may get my meaning) but a real possibility which we are fleshing out for development.

Maybe it won't be considered crazy after we have the "Buddy Love" bed sheets and action figures in the stores!

On a different note, Kool Kat Musik is almost sold out of our initial shipment of CD's and has reordered. Digital sales are coming in, mostly from iTunes UK and lastly Not Lame is also doing a brisk Buddy Love business...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

In our new incarnation, we have only played at a few small clubs in NYC, only one of which where we would care to re-appear (The Baggot Inn). We recently made a conscious decision NOT to play just any gig but to wait for better venues where there would be audiences to actually hear us. To that end, Maria (our manager) has been working hard to get us on those kind of bills.

Recently she lined up a good one at a place on Long Island opening for Rick Derringer next week but unfortunately there wasn't enough time for us to properly promote our appearance then. In the meantime she got the same promoter to hire us to open for Eddie Money in June but Rich (damn him!) is not going to be in town that week!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

My wife Ellen grew up and went to school with a guy (let's call him Bobby) who displayed extraordinary musical talent starting at a very young age. Even in grammar school anyone who knew him was sure he'd wind up as a professional musician.

Today he is the right hand man of a very famous singer/songwriter (who shall remain nameless) and over the years people would ask him for all kinds of favors; tickets for shows, free appearances at their club, help in writing songs, studio time, production or connections, yadda yadda yadda... In all that time my wife and I have made a point of NOT using our long standing friendship with him to further our own agendas, be it for tickets or favors in the music biz.

He has always been very supportive of my songwriting and I easily could have asked him many time for assistance in placing one or two but as I said, I never wanted to use our friendship in that manner.

A few years ago during one of their visits to Long Island he played a song fragment for me which he decided not to finish and left it in my hands. Over the next few weeks I nurtured it and finished it and as time passed I forgot about it. Recently, as the band has been listening to all of my demos that song came up and it was decided that we would work on it. In fact, it is now probably THE BEST DAMN SONG WE DO! So this past weekend during our kid's birthday celebrations I mentioned the song to him and wanted to discuss the legalities involved so it would not become an issue between us. He usually guards his "interests" pretty closely but to my surprise he said he was fine with a 50/50 split and even offered to produce it for us when we were ready to record! Later in the day, while showing us some of the guitars that many manufacturers have given to him over the years and after hearing my son play, he gifted him with a custom made, one of a kind guitar! Later we all jammed, he and I and our sons (his on drums) and we all had a grand old time.

What is the point of this story? Making music is one thing (don't get me wrong, a GREAT thing) but friendship is way more important and in the end it is your friends who matter, not who they are or who they know or what they can do for you.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Normally I don't pay much attention to My Space but I do have an obligatory Doug Khazzam page there which does not get visited often but what the hell, everyone's got one so why should I be any different?

Today I received a friend request from a group in Norway called Peter and The Penguins. After listening to their totally retro Mersey Beat Sound I just had to bring them to the attention of my gentle reader's (all three of you).

One song in particular struck me as humorous, "There Goes Pete Best", with the unlikely refrain, "The unluckiest bastard in the world!", SO TRUE! There's a hint of Brian Wilson on some of their other tunes but Liverpudlian influence looms large with these guys. Their sound is fun!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Been trying by phone and email to contact Josh the engineer so we can master the song, "My Little Red Book" both for the IPO CD compilation and for Maria to use for our first push. Why Won't He Answer My Calls?!?! Time (as usual) is of the essence. Funny how that works, after waiting around for months at a time to do something, all the action needs to happens at a moments notice!

While he's at it, we want Josh to tweak "Master of Illusion" so Maria will have follow up product in case her UK radio contact says, "Give me more." I think those two songs are an excellent cross section of our material and showcase or sound perfectly. But that's just my opinion, and why should anyone listen to me, since I know nothing!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Although I have been keeping a blog on the regular Buddy Love web page for well over a year, I decided to start a new blog page here so more people might come across my random rants more randomly and accidentally, and be more easy for readers to interact with me and each other (all three of them!)

So what's the first thing I'm gonna talk about? Big meeting tonight with Maria (our new manager?)! She says she's got lots of promotion opportunities for the band which she plans to outline for us and which, she hopes, we will approve.

First on the agenda? IPO CD compilation, which we have been invited to participate in. David Bash at the International Pop Overthrow is putting together Volume 11 of his annual CD collection, this time featuring bands that played at IPO NY last November. We are very pleased to be included and are contributing our track "My Little Red Book" which appears on our new CD "Now... and Then".

Next up; print media that wants to do an article about the band?!? No details yet...

Next; UK radio promotor associated with Columbia? Which track to push?!?

Last; new, as yet unrevealed web Site to do an article on the band.

Hopefully Maria will give us ALL the 411 on these events so we can make informed decisions as to how to proceed.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

More news from Maria which prompts an emergency meeting to be held this Sunday evening to discuss many exciting promotion opportunities. Could it be that Buddy Love's time has finally come? Will we take over the world as prophetically announced when our film project first got under way? I'm sure Tony will be happy to have some good stuff to film. Stay tuned for details!

About Me

Long Island, born and bred. I love 60's and 70's melodic rock music. 2nd degree black belt in tae kwon do (training now over 25 years). Father of two teenage kids who think I'm weird for being in a band. Married to the most understanding woman in the world, my el...